As thousands of techies head to Austin for SXSW, one city councilwoman stands to lose her job over a regulatory showdown with the ride-sharing firms

Councilwoman Ann Kitchen has proposed rules such as driver fingerprinting. The backlash against it might see her become the first woman in the city’s history to be booted from office.
Photograph: Lizzie Chen for the Guardian

Ann Kitchen never imagined the repercussions of her decision to regulate Uber, the ride-hailing behemoth with a valuation of $62.5bn and – she now knows – a reputation for taking no prisoners.

The 61-year-old Austin councilwoman had the temerity to propose that Uber and its rival, Lyft, be subject to the same rules that apply to other companies offering transport in the Texan state capital.

Kitchen, who represents the 80,000 people of district 5 in South Austin and was a barely-known local political figure in the city, now finds herself the target of a sophisticated, well-funded, and highly-personalized political operation.

She is facing a recall election campaign, the rare procedure through which elected officials can be booted from office. If it succeeds, she will be the first city official to be recalled in the city’s history.

“It’s brutal, and I don’t understand it,” she said. “I want to work with Uber. I’m not trying to ban them.”

Kitchen, who used to work as a social worker, does not fit a stereotype of a ragged, political bruiser.

During a recent interview at her City Hall office decorated with her mother’s paintings, she arrived in a blazer, wearing a city seal as a necklace. “A pin is fine but what woman doesn’t love a necklace?” she said, in a faint Texan drawl.

A longtime advocate for affordable housing and expanded medical coverage, she had been an expert in transport issues, never taken an Uber ride, and never thought much about the service. That changed in January 2015, when Austin’s newly-elected city council convened, and its mayor, Steve Adler, assigned Kitchen to chair the mobility committee, a team with jurisdiction over transport in the state capital.

Kitchen holds up the seal of Austin that she wears around her neck every day: ‘I want to work with Uber. I’m not trying to ban them.’ Photograph: Lizzie Chen for the Guardian

Kitchen and her committee drew up a spreadsheet. It contained all of the city’s private transportation services, from common taxis to the pedal-powered rickshaws or bike taxis (also known as pedicabs) to the quaint, horse-drawn carriages beloved by tourists.

They all had to abide by the same ordinances: drivers were fingerprinted, vehicles were required to pull over to the side of the road to pick-up passengers, and companies had to be identified with some form of official marker. To Kitchen, it seemed logical that Uber and Lyft would be subject to the same rules in the name of passenger safety.

“We had an unfortunate incident – a young woman coming out of one of our festivals called an Uber driver and got in the wrong car, and she was sexually assaulted, so we want to prevent that,” she said.

Kitchen was conscious that these rules should not be too burdensome. The official marker for transport providers, she said, could be rudimentary. “Just a sticker would be enough identification,” Kitchen said.

She drew up regulations to ensure the rules would be fairly applied across all transport providers. She had the backing of the mayor, the committee, and other council members.

“We thought we were done at that point,” Kitchen said, laughing.

Things get personal

Few of the technology enthusiasts streaming into Austin on Thursday for the annual South by Southwest (SXSW) festival will have heard of Kitchen – or the controversy she has stoked in the liberal Texan enclave.

Uber users who logged onto the app in Austin were informed there was an option called 'Kitchen’s Horse and Buggy'

Had the SXSW hordes arrived in the city back in November, when Kitchen and her team’s regulation was working its way through the city’s bureaucracy, they would have found it hard to escape the local politician’s name.

In a remarkable example of the lengths Uber is willing to go in order to crush its political opponents – however small – the company redesigned its app to broadcast a stinging piece of political sloganeering against the councilwoman.

One day in early November, Uber users who logged onto the app in Austin were informed that, in addition to a fleet of on-demand Priuses and Chevrolets available at the tap of a button, there was also an option called “Kitchen’s Horse and Buggy”.

For a flat rate of $50, they could order the city’s most antiquated form of transport, the horse-drawn carriages, named after Uber’s political opponent.

The point of the not-so-subtle gimmick was hammered home in a press release from Uber’s Texas division.

“Austinites looking to Uber around town today will get a glimpse of what life could be like if the Austin City Council adopts Council Member Ann Kitchen’s ridesharing regulations,” it said, claiming the rules would prevent the company from operating in the city. “Council Member Kitchen’s plan would impose 19th century regulations on 21st Century technology.”

This was not the first time Uber had used its app to attack a political opponent.

Months earlier, when New York’s Mayor Bill de Blasio floated the possibility of restricting Uber’s expansion, the company’s enormous (and ultimately successful) lobbying effort included a similar tweak to its app, offering users a “de Blasio Uber” option, with a 25 minute wait time.

But that was de Blasio, mayor of America’s largest city. The “Kitchen’s Horse and Buggy” option offered to Austin users was an attack on the low-profile city representative of one corner of Austin. “At first it was funny. It was just ludicrous,” Kitchen recalled. “Then it wasn’t.”

She added: “These guys out in Silicon Valley like to consider themselves disrupters, but they’re just another version of what we’ve had before: big business [types] who think they can write their own laws.”

For its part, Uber defended targeting Kitchen. “Ann is the chair of the mobility committee that introduced this ordinance,” Uber spokesperson Jennifer Mullin said. “If you’ve seen the regulations, you see they’re clearly written for the incumbent industry.”

In December, a month after Uber’s redesigned app was rolled out in Austin, Kitchen’s regulations were finally approved. It was a significant victory for the councilwoman, but it was short-lived.

Uber and Lyft swiftly created and funded a political action committee, or PAC, called RideSharing Works to overturn Austin’s new ride-sharing regulations. The aim was to secure enough signatures to win a special referendum to put the council’s regulations to a city-wide vote, and then defeat Kitchen’s plan.

“Look, it’s the state capital of the second most populous state in the union,” a Lyft spokesman who works for RideSharing Works, Reed Galen, added. “It’s an important city for us.”

Uber gave $18,111 in in-kind contributions and pledged $10,000 to help pay for a fleet of canvassers to collect signatures on the street. Lyft gave $8,730 in-kind and also pledged $10,000. Within three weeks, the campaign claims it garnered 65,000 signatures (triple the number they needed).

Uber employees in Austin, Texas. ‘Regulations are clearly written for the incumbent industry,’ says a company spokesperson. Photograph: Uber Newsroom

An attempt at compromise

From city hall, it was clear that while Kitchen had won a battle by getting the legislation passed, but she was on course to lose the wider war, potentially at great personal cost. The combined force of Uber, Lyft, and a slew of PACs was, most observers agreed, likely going to overturn the city’s regulations in the citywide referendum in May.

In what looked like an attempt to salvage a compromise, Adler, the mayor, tried to introduce a voluntary scheme under which Uber and Lyft drivers would be incentivized, rather than compelled, to submit their fingerprints.

Adler and Kitchen argue fingerprinting is a key issue because it enables the city’s most robust background check, which cross references against FBI records. They believe a slew of serious sexual assaults by on-demand drivers in Austin underscore the need to improve screening.

And there is precedent. In a rare example of city authorities laying down the law for ride-hailing companies, Houston successfully implemented finger-printing background checks after an Uber user was raped by a driver in the city. Uber begrudgingly relented to the new rules, whereas Lyft abandoned the city in protest.

Under Adler’s new plan, sharing economy service providers – initially Uber and Lyft drivers, but potentially Airbnb hosts too – would earn “badges” if they submitted to fingerprinting background checks, entitling them to special privileges.

It was intended as a business-friendly fix. Uber and Lyft drivers, Adler said, would get access to lucrative pick-up points if they submitted to the enhanced vetting procedures, paid for by the city. The mayor’s scheme, dubbed Thumbs up!, won the backing of the city council in January.

But it is toothless without the support of Uber and Lyft, both of which remain opposed to the arrangement, arguing it would create a two-tier system of drivers and discriminate against those who do not submit to the time-consuming process of background checks.

That means Kitchen’s regulations for universal, compulsory checks, and parity for all of the city’s private transport providers will (by most accounts) be defeated in May.

Then came the recall effort

But the councilwoman is not just expected to lose her regulations. She could lose her job, too. Neither Uber nor Lyft appear directly responsible for the effort to recall Kitchen.

But the attack on the councilwoman, stoked by Uber and its “Kitchen’s Horse and Buggy” initiative, has put her in the crosshairs of allied political operations that now want to see her removed from post. And Uber did not dispute that it precipitated the recall movement.

Mullin, the Uber spokesperson, did not dispute the assertion that the company galvanized the effort that has now led to moves to oust Kitchen. “A lot of people in Austin use Uber,” she said.

Few doubt that Kania and Moreland will trigger the recall election, probably in time for a vote in November

“Since when can’t adults decide how they’d like to travel?” said Justin Arman, executive director of conservative PAC Texans for Accountable Government, who is helping organize against Kitchen, whom he called “a threat to the social and economic freedoms that create local prosperity”.

“These regulations really infantilize the good people of Austin,” he added. “There’s no such thing as zero risk, and according to Kitchen’s logic, everyone should be fingerprinted – and hey, why not even chipped? – before leaving the house.”

The recall effort has been coordinated by another right-wing PAC, Austin4All, which seeks to defend the corporate interests of ride-sharing apps.

It is led by Rachel Kania, 28, and Tori Moreland, 25, who raised $46,000 for the Kitchen recall campaign, close to half of it from Joe Liemandt, billionaire CEO of the software firm Trilogy.

The city has hit back, saying the signatures are invalid on a technicality. But few doubt that Kania and Moreland will, in the end, trigger the recall election, probably in time for a vote in November.

Local media describes Kania and Moreland as a mysterious pair who are hard to reach. (One enterprising reporter from the Austin Monitor was denied entry at their launch event but got into a nearby building so he could take photos from above.)

Both are experienced Republican operatives. Kania is a former senior field and tech strategist for the Kentucky senator Rand Paul’s presidential campaign. Moreland worked for a consulting firm doing data analytics for Ted Cruz’s campaign for the White House.

Over margaritas at an outdoor Austin bar, Kania and Moreland told the Guardian that they tended not to speak to reporters because they had a singular focus. “Getting at the root of the problem,” Moreland said. “Ann Kitchen.”

They insisted that their political campaigning against Kitchen was separate from the anti-regulation efforts funded by the Uber and Lyft funded PAC, even if their causes were aligned. The fact that some canvassers happened to be doubling-up and collecting signatures for both initiatives at the same time was serendipitous, they added, but “not coordinated”.

Kania and Moreland were undeterred by the possibility the signatures they collected demanding for the recall election may be invalid, which may require they fund a second round of canvassing. “They think we’re going to give up or something,” Kania said. “We’re just getting started.”